


The Wine-Ship, or, In Which Fantine Is Treated With Fennel And Does Not Die

by PlinytheYounger



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Ancient Rome, Aurelian Wall, F/M, Gen, Roman AU, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:21:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1411375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlinytheYounger/pseuds/PlinytheYounger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roman AU. Jeanne Valjean sees a child mistreated; Fantine goes looking for her child with her burial money; a merchant is down on his luck; Javert is serving the people and doing his duty; and Jean Valjean has to escape via the latrine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wine-Ship, or, In Which Fantine Is Treated With Fennel And Does Not Die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melannen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen/gifts).



> Name references: Allius Monicus = Jean Valjean, Salvianus = Msr. Madeleine, Allia Monnica = Jeanne Valjean, Pelagia = Fantine, Aurelius = Javert, Epicharis = Cosette. The two of Jeanne Valjean's children named here are Optatus the wine-merchant and Themiste, her unmarried daughter who also works at the brick-kiln.

  1.       Lonely, and silent, the life of want  
in the country. Trembling to be caught  
rifling the _paradeisos_ of rich men’s sport



and for a day dressing the vineyard  
for a day’s coin. The charitable funds  
paid girls a pittance; less for bastards.

But the city was a show. Of greatness  
for the great; of wretchedness  
for those who had to beg. Not enough

to ask for pity’s sake; you had to entertain  
to flatter men’s appearance, their generosity  
to make a wheedling desperate display.

Some had to maim their children. Monnica instead  
rose before sunrise to sweep the market dregs  
the apple pith, nut-husks, black bread like clay.

Each day she’d pushed the crowd aside  
bitterly thinking there were too many alive  
too little air. Sometimes saw a hand

dart into the stalls, and never breathed a word.  
Now in her fine stola with silver to spend  
her memories girded her like armour:

not to relent, or slacken; underneath her feet  
the abyss still. Niobe sobbed herself to stone;  
her tears were parched with fire at the kiln.

But the girl at the fish-stall was frighteningly thin  
and flinched. She came at dawn to beg, alone.  
A sallow face; not just hungry, but resigned

and she knew the look of a child still loved  
the hair on a feverish skull, so gently combed...  
nobody cared whether this one came home

and even her takings were being taken. Her voice  
grew quiet; a woman cuffed her ears; but like a horse  
strengthless at the plough, her health was broken

and Monnica not knowing she would speak up spoke:  
“Planning to sell her, then?” she said, “she’s worthless;  
soon be dead. You’ll  lose even the cost of her fodder,

I’ve seen it happen.” A slave dealer then, since she smiled  
a mercantile smile, and said – “she’s healthy as a lark.  
Besides, she’s not ours to sell. We’ll be rid of her

when her mother’s raised the ransom, lazy tart.  
They sold a little Gaul for eighteen _solidi;_ we’re charging ten  
by Hercules! she should thank us.” “And have you waited long?

That kind of love’s not as pig-headed as you think  
a mother feathers her nest as well. Not much of a deal  
if she’s sent you only a thimbleful. You’ve sunk

a lot into this business. It could fall through.  
The same thing’s happened to me, too. Can’t afford  
the doctor’s fee? With these overheads

it’s hard to make a living, friend.” And if the girl  
had lifted her head but once – but her eyes were dull.  
Three years, the _venalicius_ admitted; what a shame

and it was true she didn’t work the way she had;  
didn’t earn her keep. Monnica sighed her sympathy;  
and as poised as iron made to walk away.

But Clodia the slave-dealer needed ready money  
more than she needed an ailing brat; struck  
at long last a hard bargain for her life.

Monnica would fire bricks after brick  
until the Tiber overran, the marble Victory  
let go her chariot-reins, the calves grow double heads,

and never make that money back. Quiet  
and questioning nothing, the girl took her hand;  
and walked with uncertain steps from her family,

her captors. It was Monnica’s son who paid  
the doctor’s fee; a regular, a friend,  
who made groat porridge for each attack

of preternatural heat, and let a little blood,  
and pressed bunches of fennel to her wet forehead  
until the worst spasms passed, the humour ended.

So here it was, twenty years too late:  
Monnica’s good luck. The gods had given back  
one child for three. The measure of her fate.

  1.       The money that had kept Pelagia as far as Rome  
was meant to pay for place in a _columbarium;  
_ the last gift of the town councillor, who lay now



in a living tomb, when she herself had somehow lived.  
Now it would go to pay the ransom.  
If only Epicharis was born a citizen!

But her daughter named for kindness, grace,  
was the product of abomination  
a senator of good family and the little slave

who dressed his sister’s hair and swept the kitchen.  
No law’d been broken by the Clodii  
not even that of stolen property.

Her marriage had been no marriage; her child  
no child. And those terrible extortioneers  
who’d run their business out of Antium

had fled among the thousand streets of Rome  
to sell their cargo off beneath the crown  
and lose her daughter in the human throng.

One neighbour had given her an address  
of sorts; and said that by the Temple of Peace  
the provincial dealers sometimes hawked their wares;

and several there had paid, they said, too much  
for ugly slaves from a thin man, a tall woman,  
sometimes both called Clodii...in the Suburra

with a stall by the ox-market, or begging  
with their poor daughters (how she shuddered)  
on Salt Street and by the cemeteries.

Once in a bakery four streets away  
the exact image of her daughter stood  
the familiar profile which Pelagia’d run after

and threw her arms around three times, all in vain  
her hand on a strange child’s shoulder, making a scene,  
who for a moment she swore, she could really swear...

but when she called “Epicharis!” the girl turned round  
and those had been her eyes. Those. Exactly those.  
And this stooped woman holding onto her!

“It’s _you_ who took my daughter? All these months  
I called after “Clodius” in every shop and street  
and you’d stolen her already. I hardly recognised her!

“I didn’t steal her,” Monnica said, “I bought her.”  
“So that’s all right then! That’s entirely fair!  
And how much will you ask for her now?

I’ve sold a lot, but still I have my eyes;  
then pluck them out, since your trophy is my child!  
Or else my liver! What now, you screech-owl

you wolf, you shameless thief and triple-thief,  
you gallows-bird and profiteer, go on  
and name your price!” “Nothing at all

if the child is yours.” “Of course she’s mine!”  
“I’ll leave that to your ‘daughter’ to decide.”  
So small that for a moment Pelagia thought

only a day or so had passed; her darling had slept  
like the seven in the cave of Ephesus  
and then saw the bone of her wrists and wept.

Never, ever would Epicharis tell her later  
she’d had not a flicker of recognition for that spectre  
with her frightening smile; but the kind words

the open arms had swayed her, and to her  
“It’s your mother, your mother, o my precious!”  
had answered obediently “Mother.”

It seemed Pelagia’s curse to be charmed at once  
with her worst betrayers, and to curse in turn  
her dearest friends. And so it was with Monnica

who was sparing with words, and difficult  
on first acquaintance; made odd private jokes  
with the unmarried daughter who lived with her

in rapid Punic while Pelagia stood dumbly by.  
But Epicharis missed her, pined away  
for this woman who’d haggled for her like a cow

out of pity! It burnt at her mother’s heart  
to play at knucklebones with her saviour  
who’d doubted she had any claim on her.

But once they slipped behind the plebeian seats  
to the pantomime of Turnus’ death; the actor  
staggered like an enormous, drunken bear

instead of a doomed hero, and Pelagia’s laughter  
stifled in her dress, was echoed back. Together  
they’d sweep the floor of olive-pits her daughter spat.

And Monnica said once: _I’d rather there’d been one  
who’d thought a little of one of my own, when --   
_ She had four children, now, all grown  

and swore by dried mice as a remedy  
for colds, and sooted her hair a youthful black  
although she was on the verge of sixty.

 

  1. Optatus, “prayed for”, was his name; Monnica’s eldest  
who’d spoiled his siblings when young, and now  
doted on Epicharis. He shipped wine in from Gaul;



the Narbonese kind, sweetened with herbs and aloe  
and Rhaetican from over the Alps, whose one virtue  
was the kick it gave the stomach on the cheap.

He’d had a little good fortune with peppered wines  
and now would come exhausted on a holiday  
with his ledger in hand. Brought Pelagia a cup

of Spanish must to try; which tasted, perhaps,  
like Cocolobis on her thoughtful tongue. Her senator  
had taste; she knew the sort of wine

that men would fritter thousands on  
in one night of debauchery, and when  
Optatus despaired of getting better orders

asked if she could help him barter. Dipped  
the ladles in; drank and spat out deliberately,  
and said at last: “This is like a first-pressing

it’s so sweet; the juice flows out all by itself  
at a feather’s touch to the ripened grapes.”  
He trusted her; bought and sold it; escaped

the press of debts from a shipment that vinegared.  
And so she took a day from sewing shirts  
each week, to test his wines out jar by jar

and learn the prices, the weights and measures,  
the names of the agents at the warehouses:  
constellations of knowledge, all of it told

as though she would soon understand.  
She took two days away; helped now with sales  
and caulked the tiled floor. They danced

a delighted jig one evening at success  
and collapsed together on the counter when they failed.  
Mixed nard and pepper with the must

which turned out flavourless; painted their back wall  
with WELCOME, DRINK, ENJOY.  
And Epicharis, always welcome, climbed the shelves

forbidden even to contemplate the broom  
and slipped pork crackling by her mother  
sweetmeats by Optatus and the customers.

His hair was an athlete’s wreath of curls  
(she forgave him the absurd Hellenic beard)  
and he smiled a little crookedly, and strummed

the beads of his abacus with a harpist’s speed  
and took her arm one evening when they walked  
to the gate by the Praetorian Barracks; talking

of Pontic wormwood, Egyptian grape, and the must  
from the mountain at Tmolus, miraculous stuff,  
which turned the gall it touched to honey.

Broader than the span of the Appian Way  
stretched the square shadows of Aurelian’s Walls  
built fifteen years before; “Nearer the Viminal

and the Nomentine Gate, that’s where I worked  
with my mother, my brothers and sisters...”  
He walked a little on in silence.

 “They mixed _pozzolanum;_ we hauled the hods  
as high as we could take the wooden towers -  
the city from above was laid out like a map:

the racecourse was a pigeon’s bath of dust  
the Field of Mars a sleeping toad  
the emperor’s tomb an ear of grain

The sweat stung my eyes; you worked in harness  
but it didn’t do much good...Pelagia, do you think  
it’s inhuman that I should remember any happiness in this?

How feeble-minded children are! My mother used  
to tremble when she mounted that first slat;  
she never took her eyes off us, but it’s hard...

Still, the best wine I’ve ever tasted  
was that salt Cos wine the foreman watered down  
warm in clay cups at dusk; yes, the best.”

“I drank worse to keep the cold out  
and pay my daughter’s rescue. Without some joy  
I would have known it all; been lost – ”

“That’s why you spit it out! Pelagia,  
I don’t know where you find your bravery  
I don’t want to ask more than you can give to me.”

“Trust me. I no longer work that trade...  
you must have guessed the kind of woman I am.”  
“The kind of dog your senator was! A wife’s

the woman you live with, who gives you a child.”  
“By your laws at least. I wish that you were emperor  
You’d make a better job of building walls

you’re the most humane person I know...”  
“Even though...?” “Oh, yes, even though...”  
The gate swung wide to let them through.

They chivvied the donkey through the gate home  
and watched the sun light even that enormous facade  
with a rosy haze of pink; the brick picked out in gold;

and with a little of their new-bought goods  
poured a libation to the dead. It was so late  
that the shop was entirely empty. They sat

by the resinous shelves and caught their breath.  
All the way home they had talked so lightly...  
and now Pelagia without thinking touched his hand

the curve of his back, the hollow of his shoulder  
and felt him invisibly shudder. “My business partner,  
my dear friend, my...” He cupped her cheek

for once lost for words, and turned  
into the warm shape of her kiss. Her body  
still remembered pleasure, trust,

and reached for Optatus, who followed her  
like a pupil learning the steps of a dance:  
so careful, so enraptured. Even his stubble

seemed a delightful roughness on her neck.  
He praised against her hair her head  
for numbers, her kindness, her clever tongue –

“It’s not just me who has a clever tongue,”  
she said, amazed that she could laugh in this,  
and saw him blush, his warm hands brush

her thighs under her dress. She hitched  
her hips against the marble countertop  
to give him room. The jostle of his breath

sparked tremors; and with his fingertips  
he drew frustrating circles, lightly pressed  
a little nearer to the mark. At last his mouth

in a flicker of heat, and, yes, how cleverly,  
how he touches her; that wet caress  
doubling and redoubling, unrelentingly...

She gripped at the air, and cried inevitably out  
so loud she thought the neighbourhood would wake  
the geese on the Capitol start to shriek

the Praetorian Guard panic and turn out  
the water in the aqueducts shake and shake...  
and touched him in her turn so thoroughly

he called even on the crossroad gods  
and caught her round the waist, and kissed  
her mouth as though a thousand kisses

would be too few, and never sate him.

  1.       Weekly by the temple of Athena Front-Fighter  
Monnica came for her share of good Egyptian grain  
and showed her gleaming _tessera._ Her name



was inked on the roll of the registered poor.  
And so in exchange for the means of living  
every functionary in Rome knew just where she lived.

The state archives could not keep track of a coward  
who fled and pretended grandeur; but Allius Monnicus  
was an uncommon name. The captain had good reason

to know he’d had a sister. She’d had a letter written  
pleading to remove him from service, or at least  
to keep him closer to their home town. And so his knock

startled her household at dawn. His cloak  
was as red as ink in the risen sun. He asked to speak  
to Allia Monnica; she would know the reason why.

“A fine business when the army recompenses you  
for your brother’s service, and he proves himself  
as slippery as quicksilver. I swear to you he won’t be burnt

or lose a hand; such things are a barbarous waste.  
All I ask is honest service, and I’ll let him go.  
You’ll find me reasonable. Believe me, I’ve learnt

how everyone would turn soldier when it’s a fine uniform  
and a fat salary, but just let Bellona crack the whip  
and grown men weep on the field. If you saw

how the barbarians treat a captured town  
you’d hunt him down yourself! May every god that’s listening  
spare you and your kids that  pretty sight.

We’re on the same side, Monnica: so hand him in.”  
“I’ve seen nothing of my brother, nothing.” Tears  
started in her eyes. “He didn’t even say he planned...”

“They handed me the money; then I heard  
of the court martial, and the mines. Twenty years.  
I wouldn’t recognise him if I saw him now.”

“A brother like that is no brother,” Aurelius said.  
“Quite right. But you’d certainly recognise the brand!  
Allia Monnica, keep that fact in mind.”

 

  1.       No one spoke, nor would have spoken  
after the captain, saluting, had at last left  
except that in the alcove of the _mediolanum_



Pelagia had hid stock-still behind a curtain  
and cried: “Then Salvianus is not yet dead!  
I know that man. I did not dream he’d said

his quarry had played at being a magistrate?  
And had a brand? He seized him by my sick-bed.  
I thought to take him to his death –

And this was your brother! He has your kind heart.  
I could weep; I should find better words -  
by all the gods! It was not the cudgel; he lives;

has he taken ship somewhere? Does he think  
me dead as well? Your brother! I am sorry  
my friend, this is too much to hear at once -

I’m sure he had good reason to desert.  
What a bad man I thought him! But Monnica  
he was so good...” And truly like a warrior

a Turnus at the gates of burning Latium  
Monnica’s great strength, that built the Wall,  
and bore her griefs, at last gave way;

she buckled at the knees, fell to the floor  
her daughter and Pelagia to support her  
and hardly comprehend her shining tears.

Themiste went running to call her brother;  
(too dangerous to ask a messenger)  
and write to their family in Syracuse

telling them without telling them  
that their uncle still lived, and they, with him,  
in danger. She'd quietly accused

his cowardice, his absence; most of all  
his failure, all these years. But now  
remembered only how they'd stolen milk

and he'd said not a word. How hard  
it was to live! Some people simply folded -  
but after all he'd lived through the mines

if not the army. As a child she'd only thought  
of how tall he was, wondered how he could fit  
beneath the earth. He'd helped another man desert;

that's why they were so heavy-handed.  
And now they had to find some way to warn him  
even get him out! The conference ran:

“The officer -" so Monnica "- knows him by sight. And would  
he have chased a dead man’s sister if he had not thought  
he might be here, in Rome? Should we find

him, should he come here, to my door  
we must make plans to run. I can’t offer shelter  
since the army knows my address.”

“Then I know a few men in the shipping trade,”  
Optatus said; “who take the run up to Massilia  
with a heavy cargo, I could bribe my way

into room in the hold for three or four.  
If really Allius is alive, if somehow...”  
“And what do you know of life there?”

 “Massilia!” he said, “can you imagine? The Rhine  
flows into that valley. They sail wine upriver  
to where men live wild, in barrelfuls – they drink

a tun up in a silver mixing-bowl at feasts.  
And if you’re frightened of the law, there’s none  
once past Narbonne. The Bagaudae

scratch their rulings on tree-bark, and parade  
magistrates and governors naked. Some, they say,  
are Christ-worshippers, and dream of equality--”  

"But why come knocking now? Wasn't  
your "Salvianus" was caught in June?  
Perhaps something has spurred him on."

(Themiste, shorter with words.) "And Rome.  
It's after he was stationed here. He looked at the rolls.  
He must have seen someone - " "Be watching?

Yes," Pelagia said, thinking, "Yes, I remember.  
his thoroughness; he'll be at the barracks; not too far.  
I see now there's a way to find this out."

6\. “He has not seen me,” she said, “and I believe  
he does not know me.” She barked a laugh.  
“He would not even suspect I could be so brave

as to come after him. I won’t be seen. I know  
those alleys; I was a child here, after all. Ah!  
It will be easy, even.” In her matron’s _stola_

the grey-brown of the crowd, she darted like a bird  
within it. And with that same quavering pulse  
watched his booted steps, the beat of his sword

on his marching thigh, as even as a drum.  
One dreadful Suburra winter the _proseucha  
_ that stood just opposite the greengrocer’s

had set a counter out to feed the crowd; given  
soup and stories to an orphan girl; who remembered now  
how a magician had made a man of clay and leavened

the dull earth with bone-breath to move his limbs  
obediently; and took away his orders; made him dust.  
Surely he had moved with just that measured tread

and never looked aside. But on his brow  
no holy words; instead his oath. Which spoke  
perhaps of honour. Well! A soldier needs his oil and wood

his sport as well. Aurelius kept the accounts  
and heard complaints; apprehended thieves; even  
when he caught men drawing swords at market  
  
had them promptly flogged; was strict, and even just  
in grain-measures, chalk-billets, and the arrest  
of an _infamis_  woman, on a citizen’s petition.

The order of the world. Yes, great and lowly  
barbarian and Roman; armed and unarmed.  
How the army upheld it. How bravely

one day he would die, and could not doubt  
any more than could the Wall the function  
his captain scored with leek juice on his skin.

Dreamed, perhaps, if not of promotion,  
of the small-holding he’d dutifully plough  
after fifteen years. The Blues had better odds

of winning every season than he of living out  
his active service. How he didn’t drink  
Pelagia wondered. How he didn’t see

the other regiments, their swathes of pillage,  
the weeping girls, the empty granaries, the threats,  
the bruises, most of all, the lies... 

 

 

  1.       Insomuch as Pelagia had thought  
she would find Salvianus when his pursuer did  
she had been quite right; but had not dreamed



of how she’d outstrip him when she did. She had  
perhaps five minutes; only a warning;  
for her benefactor who now, astonished,

still, at once, knotted his bedlinen. The wall  
was watched by Aurelius; across the corridor  
stood the latrine; a dreadful passage for the desperate.

 The rope guided them only so far. They hung  
over the fetid breath of the pit, the litter  
of oyster-shells and bones flung in

with human waste. The walls were thin;  
the house reverberated like a drum  
to the careful, quiet climbing steps

that scraped the loose mosaic by their ears  
and carried on upwards. The linen would not hold.  
Not daring one word, mouth tight shut

he touched Pelagia’s shoulder, drew her arms  
around his neck, as gently as he could.  
She clung on like a shipwrecked man.

Just so, in the terrible belly of the mines  
Allius had made a ladder of the tomb  
and braced his back against his prison.

Pelagia was little weight. He vowed  
fresh, new cakes on the Mother’s altar  
a cockerel to the god of doors, if only

the slime of the walls did not betray him.  
Foot by foot, they reached the door  
of the lowest floor; Allius kicked it wide

and caught the lintel with one hand.  
They choked, this far down, on the smell,  
but, by Hercules! – hadn’t fallen.

Upstairs Aurelius’ methodical search  
which would soon turn to the windows, guess -  
but in that few minutes desperation granted

they ran like Atalanta. The donkey was penned  
by the Tiburtine Gate; the best Optatus could do  
for a getaway. Allius, who could talk nettles

into a useful bloom, coaxed it to a flying trot  
down to the river-boat docks. And there his sister  
a niece and nephew, the child he’d longed to save.

Allius who had lived a Stoic’s life for Epicharis  
thinking only that he must continue for her sake  
as lonely and as hunted as a beast; who’d lived

for a moment with hope and had it taken  
and seen the span of the world in cruelty  
cast his arms around his sister wordlessly

and catching at last his shocked and sobbing breath  
“I’m sorry,” said, “I couldn’t, I couldn’t,  
I had my sword but when I saw his face

he caught the man at my side in the ribs  
but still I couldn’t...how it rained! And I knew  
I’d brought you poverty, disgrace. You can’t forgive - ”

“I do,” Monnica said, “I do. You did all you could  
and I've come here with everything I have  
to fly with you to safety. I thank every god

the mines couldn’t kill you...oh my _brother –_ ”  
With the younger ones there marvelling at his face  
so gentle and so worn; his gladiator’s frame

never used. He stripped his filthy tunic off  
and ducked into the hold, still unbelieving,  
not daring to ask if the others lived abroad

or lived at all; seven children! Too much  
to remember for twenty years and now not enough;  
too many questions. He huddled in.

And Pelagia, who’d spat in his face, embraced him  
“Your statue, good sir, still stands by our basilica  
splendid on horseback, the patron of the town!”

He smiled: “It must have cost too much to melt it down.  
But how did you come to warn me? And to meet my sister -  
and now we are to board ship to _Massilia?_ ”

“It’s straight out of _Chaireas and Callirhoe  
_ I’ll tell you when we’re safely in the hold  
you must think yourself an amphora till we’re past Ostia.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. "The charitable funds" are alimentary schemes - they fed the children of the free poor through an elaborate land investment scheme and did, indeed, give less food to girls and the illegitimate.  
> 2\. The details of the life of the poor are taken from John Chrysostom and Alciphron, sources both a bit later from this fic  
> 3\. Kidnapping children for the slave trade and/or ransom is mainly attested by St Augustine  
> 4\. The double-headed calves and Victory letting go the reins are omens/portents for Major Events, taken from Livy (...three hundred years earlier)  
> 5\. Medical details from Galen! The plant *might* be giant fennel, or might not be.  
> 6\. A columbarium ("dove cote") was a collective tomb, often paid for from a burial fund, for the poor.  
> 7\. Salt Street & the cemeteries were both haunts for prostitutes, which is why Pelagia is distressed to hear that the Clodii are wandering around there  
> 8.The seven sleepers of Ephesus is a fifth century story and also I'm really sorry  
> 9\. All wine details are from Pliny's Natural History, chapter 27!  
> 10\. The wine shop (and counter) looks basically like those at Ostia...enjoy...that sexy mental image should you ever visit  
> 11\. Monnicus as deserter and Aurelius as officer is all thanks to the invaluable Stripy, who saved me. Deserters were branded on the hand according to Vegetius (...a source later than this fic); punishments for desertion really were that variable case by case. There are letters like Monnica's in the archive of Egypt-based office Abinnaeus.  
> 12\. The Bagaudae are attested by about three fragmentary sources one of which is a comedy, the Querolus, which Optatus is riffing off. Were they a myth, a late antique jacquerie, a splinter kingdom, a Robin-Hood-like bandit band? goodness...knows...  
> 13\. The text archives at Aphrodisias attest to the synagogue running a soup kitchen there (also run by a woman!). There also was a synagogue opposite a greengrocer's in Rome, uh, epigraphically attested, and several texts comment on Jewish charity at the time.  
> 14\. The Blues are a chariot team! "The Civilian's View of Late Roman Soldiers" by H. Elton is available online and kind of sums up the complaints Pelagia is voicing about the army here.   
> 15\. Chaireas and Callirhoe is a Hellenistic novel notable for absurd coincidences and improbable reunions....so....yes.


End file.
